The present invention relates to a novel water removing composition suitable for use in treating surfaces of solids such as metals, ceramics and plastics.
It is known that compositions consisting of halogenated hydrocarbon solvents and surface active agents of certain kind, particularly amines or neutralization products of amines and organic or inorganic can be employed for treating solid surfaces to remove water. For instance, neutralization products of alkyl phosphates and alkylamines are proposed as the above-mentioned surface active agents in U.S. Pat. No. 3,397,150. Also, particular amines having an oxyalkylene group or neutralization products of these amines and organic or inorganic acids are proposed as the surface active agents in Japanese Patent Publication No. 11556/1974 and Japanese Patent Disclosure Nos. 13087/1974, 14383/1974 and 55583/1974. Further, DT-OS No. 2,355,908 discloses diamides of certain kind as the surface active agents.
In general, water removing compositions applied to the surface treatment are required to be able to quickly and completely remove water from solid surfaces (that is, to have excellent water removing ability), and to be able to quickly and completely separate the removed water without forming an emulsion phase with a solvent (that is, to have excellent ability of separating water). It is also required that surface active agents to be dissolved in solvents are hard to dissolve in water and the power of the surface active agent stands for a long period of time.
The present inventors have studied known water removing compositions and found that in general, the higher the water removing ability of these known compositions, the more the water removed from treated surfaces forms easily the emulsion phase with a solvent and thus the slower the rate of the separation of water from solvent becomes. Thus, known water removing compositions do not possess both of excellent water removing ability and excellent water separating ability. Therefore, compositions excellent in both water removing and water separating abilities are desired.